“It Was 7 a.m.” — Woman Recounts How Drunk Stranger Kissed Her Without Warning as She Walked Dog
"7 a.m., walking the dog, Thursday morning."
Published July 8 2024, 12:56 p.m. ET
"Oh how I love being a woman!!" TikToker Peyton Johnson (@the.peytonjohnson) sarcastically writes in a caption for her viral video about the scary encounter she had while walking a dog early one weekday morning.
The content creator's post contains a scary anecdote about an incident she recently endured when, out of nowhere, she was accosted by a random, drunk man who started complimenting her on her beauty.
After the guy asked her if she had a boyfriend (she lied and told him that she did in order to hopefully dissuade any of his further advances) he then proceeded to kiss her.
She angrily relayed the situation in a viral TikTok that's accrued over 880,000 views on the popular social media platform.
She records her video outdoors, holding a cup of coffee in front of what looks like a garage. A train's horn can be heard blaring in the background: "In case anyone was wondering what it's like to be a woman. It was 7 a.m. and I was just walking this dog that I'm pet-sitting and this guy stops me."
He then begins to engage in the typical unsolicited cat-calling/hitting on random people routine: "He's hitting me with the 'oh you're so beautiful, do you have a boyfriend?' It's like 'yeah I have a boyfriend.'" She then adds in an aside to the audience: "I don't have a boyfriend."
She continues with her tale: "Do you guys live together?" the man asks her, and Peyton is sure to mention to the man that she and her imaginary boyfriend are definitely an item that reside in the same place as one another.
"Yeah we live together," she replies to the strange man. However, his actions are just further proof that oftentimes people are just in a catch-22 in these types of situations, as it doesn't really matter what they say.
Petyon's further relaying of her story details why.
"Then, he kissed me. 7 a.m., walking the dog, Thursday morning, and you get freaking kissed on the sidewalk, bro. And he wasn't cute, he was drunk. This is what it means to be a woman in America," she says at the end of the video.
Numerous people who saw the clip sympathized with Peyton, but there were some who expressed their shock that she even stopped to talk with that man in the first place.
Like this user who wrote: "I would never let some stranger get that close to me."
Another person said that if this occurred to them they would react violently to the person who kissed them: "I would immediately get violent, I’m so sorry that happened."
Someone else said that Peyton should take it upon herself to get checked out and make sure that the dude didn't accidentally give her any gnarly diseases.
"Immediately hospital. Just to get preventative medicine in case he was a carrier of anything. Sooner rather than later!!!!!!"
Sadly, other women said that they've been in similar situations, like this one user who penned that they froze when a random person kissed them out of nowhere: "This happened to me before. I was just standing there talking to him and he kissed me before I could even process what was happening."
Someone else wrote: "Same thing happened to me at a bar. My boyfriend got mad at ME??!!!"
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, the number of sexual assault cases have increased.
The vast majority of victims are women and girls, according to Drexel: after the COVID-19 pandemic, that number has skyrocketed from 243 million cases to 736 million.
According to World Population Review, it appears that the United States has either the highest number of rapes and sexual assaults, or, as the organization writes, is one of the few countries accurately reporting these cases: "Accurate rape statistics are hard to obtain as many victims don't report due to reasons like embarrassment, fear of reprisal, or insufficient laws."
The WPR went on to write: "Globally, about 35% of women have faced sexual harassment, but fewer than 40% seek help, and less than 10% reach out to law enforcement. Definitions and tracking methods of rape vary globally, affecting statistics; some countries have broader definitions and include non-consensual or statutory rape."
In addition to the United States, Sweden has broad laws that define rape and a culture of reporting these crimes appears to have been fostered, if open reporting of these crimes/instances are to lead one to believe that this is the case.